Schizoporella cf. errata (Waters, 1878)

Branching bryozoan

Phylum Ectoprocta
Class Gymnolaemata
Order Cheilostomata
Family Schizoporellidae

Description
This heavily calcified encrusting bryozoan is typically dark brick red with orange-red growing margins. It assumes the shape of whatever it overgrows. This species may form heavy knobby incrustations on flexible surfaces such as algae or worm tubes, turning them into solid, sometimes erect branching structures. The thickness of the growth is dependent upon the age of the colony. Multilaminar encrustations of 1 cm thick are common. The frontal surface of the zoecium (secreted exoskeleton housing of individual zooids) is porous with a wide semicircular aperture and proximal sinus. Also with single avicularia on right or left side of aperture sinus.
Habitat
As fouling in shallow water on hard substrates (pilings, hulls, coral rubble, etc.) in harbors and embayments. Occasionally found on the reef, especially in Kaneohe Bay.
Distribution
Hawaiian Islands
Throughout the main islands and Midway Atoll.
Native Range
Mediterranean
Present Distribution
Probably worldwide in warm temperate-subtropical seas (reported from West Africa, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, South Australia, New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Pacific Coast of North America, East Coast North America through Caribbean to Brazil, and Mediterranean).
Mechanism of Introduction
Unintentional, as fouling on ships' hulls
Impact
Fouling organism. Ecological impact unstudied, but observations suggest some competition for space with other fouling invertebrates.
Ecology
Feeding
The bryozoan is a suspension feeder. It has a retractable U-shaped crown of tentacles (lophophore) which bear cilia that create a current, bringing food particles toward the animal. Particles are then guided into the mouth by action of the tentacles and cilia.
Reproduction
Each bryozoan colony begins from a single, sexually produced, primary zooid. This zooid undergoes asexual budding to produce a group of daughter cells, which themselves form buds, and so on. Most bryozoans are hermaphroditic, each zooid capable of producing sperm and eggs. Sperm is released into the coelom and the fertilized eggs are retained and brooded for a time before being released.
Remarks
Edmondson (1933) was the first to remark upon an "undetermined orange species" forming encrustitng and branching colonies in Pearl Harbor. Often reported as Schizoporella errata, it is now a common fouling species, found throughout the main Islands.
References
Soule, J.D., D.F. Soule, and H.W.Chaney. 1987. Phylum Ectoprocta. in Reef and Shore Fauna of Hawaii. Section 2: Platyhelminthes through Phoronida, and Section 3: Sipuncula through Annelida, D. Devaney and L. Eldredge, eds. Bishop Mus. Spec. Pub. 64(2 and 3): 83-166.
Edmonson, C.H. 1933. Reef and Shore Fauna of Hawaii. B.P. Bishop Mus. Spec. Pub. 22.